I disagree about Antonio. His personal arrogance and ignorance of his client was appalling. Twice he even said they were on an Army base, as a justification for avoiding the brown / tan colors. Idiot! They were on a NAVY base and the BLUE color family is what should be avoided if you want to avoid inundating the family in the color associated with their branch of service. (Navy colors are blue & gold and “some” of the uniforms are blue.)

Tori was correct in wanting to respect the client’s color preferences. She was not advocating for ALL brown and tan. They could have used something in the brown color family, with blue accents, not the other way around. Antonio’s arrogance and disrespect, not only for the client, but his other team members, showed he was closed minded to other’s ideas. Either “my way or no way” is not someone I would hire as a design consultant. Grow up, Antonio!

Mandy on August 17, 2009 at 11:55 am

Well said, Mandy. Not only is Antonio arrogant, he is unpleasant to watch because he looks unclean with all the graffiti covering his body. Not only would I not want to watch him on a show of his own but would not want him coming in to my home to do a design.

Now a couple of questions for HGTV (if they read the blogs at all – can't find any other way to contact them): on Design Star do the fan votes really count? Haven't seen an update on that site for a couple of weeks now. Also, why oh why do you continue to run hour after hour of real estate-type shows? Where have all the design shows like Designed to Sell or ideas for inexpensive home improvement shows like Decorating Cents gone. It used to be such fun as well as educational to watch HGTV. Now it seems we will have more real estate type shows like the undesirable Property Shop, Real Estate Intevention and House Hunters International plus the many others of that ilk. Let's hope these are just your "Summer re-run" type shows and we will have some REALhome and garden helpful shows back in the Fall.

VSR on August 17, 2009 at 4:32 pm

I agree with David's comments about Antonio, designers need to "push" the clients a little to be more adventurous. Did not like the chevron wall. It would have been better as a large painting rather than a whole wall. At least the designer tried for something a little different. Overall, I liked Antonio & team's room very much. The other team, Nathan, etc. was cookie cutter, again.

JudyW on August 17, 2009 at 12:07 pm

Mandy (above) is completely correct in her assessment of Antonio. Rude and arrogant… doesn't work well with people… he is also a liar. He lied when he said that he forgot the tan paint. Who wants to work with that? Hey, Antonio! Did it ever cross your mind to buy dark chocolate paint? One of the walls could have been a dark chocolate and the client would have been happy, and it would have been a focal point in the room. It's called compromise. Something Antonio is not familiar with.

It was refreshing not to hear David brag on how he was the best this week!

If I were paying Antonio or David to design a room for me and they did not listen to my color choices I would fire them. However, I would not have such an arogant person such as Antonio work for me.

Guest on August 17, 2009 at 12:37 pm

I thought it might be refreshing to not see any rude/thoughtless comments! Guess you just can't get away from them!

Tracy on August 17, 2009 at 5:46 pm

So far, it appears that Antonio has TWO strong passions, design and getting his way or else. It takes just a few seconds for the design passion to be overshadowed by the inability to work in a team setting.

With his aggessive personality, he'd overcome that handicap if his talent trumped his temper. Unfortunately, that's not the case from what we've seen so far. He's shown viewers a few design bright spots, but hasn't fully pulled together anything in his own right to warrant winning the competition—by a longshot.

I think Antonio was wrong in not listening to the client, that is one reason I am afraid to use a professional designer. They seem to put their own taste into selecting color and decor and not listening to my direction, remember they are paid employees.Of course the clients were happy but looking at their previous room anything is an improvement besides it was free they don't want to appear ungrateful. Antonio is a great designer but too rough around the edges, he's hard to watch because he doesn't get along with his peers he comes across as being too street not someone i'd like to invite into my living room on a weekly basis.